times of goutam buddha

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE.[1][15] More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988,[16][17][18] the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death.[1][19][note 5] These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.[24][25][note 8]

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE.[27] It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch.[27]According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, nowadays in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu, which may have been in either present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India.[note 1]

He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.

No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to the Buddha's birthplace in Lumbini. Another one of his edicts mentions several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era and which may be the precursors of the Pāli Canon.[41][note 9] The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalal- abad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in theBritish Library. They are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.